David B,
A good post. By the way, why don't we add the quotes that we use from the
books to the posting "Some notes on Quality" of Nov 15, 1999. That way we
would build up a library of quotes and not have to refer to the books so
often?
I agree with all of the Pirsig quotes you posted, however, I think that
there is some disagreement on the meaning of these quotes within the squad.
I think that I am not making my meaning clear in some of my previous quotes
so I am going to try a different approach:
BIG BANG
Resulting in:
Very early universe including energy, matter time, and at least a couple of
atomic structures.That is, Hydrogen and Helium, plus the function
of Quality.
Under the influence of Quality the inorganic universe evolved and offered
more possibilities for change and evolution. Because the universe evolved
under the influence of Quality everything that
happened was good
and had value and was moral.
At the beginning of the biological level the universe had evolved into a
moral universe in which all was good and had value simply because Quality
had produced a moral universe.
BIOLOGICAL LEVEL
Due to the force of Quality and the increasing range of possibilities
(complexity) the biological level evolved.
The biological level evolved to the level of awareness, that is, it had
animals which could recognize themselves as separate individuals.
Without benefit of sentience (humanity) the universe was still a moral
universe since a universe under the direction of Quality had value and
morality by definition. The universe is moral and has value because it is
the result of the action of Quality.
SOCIAL LEVEL
Still as a result of the operation of Quality, sentience and the social
level evolved.
At this point sentience had entered the picture and was capable of
affecting the operation of Quality. The universe was still moral and had
value but sentience had injected into the purely value evolution of the
previous levels the capability of introducing immorality into the universe.
Sentience was capable of understanding the original Quality evolution and
operating in opposition to it if sentience judged the operation of
evolutionary morality to be harmful. Thus, we can no longer say that the
universe is always a moral universe that has value. Sentience has given us
the possibility of having a biosphere which is susceptible to global
warming and other harmful effects of the judgements of sentience.
INTELLECTUAL LEVEL
The evolution of the intellectual level has intensified the possibility
of harmful effects by sentience. Fortunately, it has also given us the
capability of a deeper understanding of the needs of the universe and the
biosphere as it affects humanity. In other words, we have been given the
means to live in harmony with the universe and the biosphere. It remains to
be seen whether we will gain the necessary wisdom to do so. It seems to me
that the question is still open.
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